In 1948 LIFE ran a big story with an alarming headline: “The American Family in Trouble.”
Even though the story ran nearly eighty years ago, the threats that it named might sound familiar today. Divorce rates were rising. Movies and advertising were creating unrealistic expectations and thus sowing discontent. But the real issue, the story claimed, was that family members didn’t do things together anymore. The ideal family situation that LIFE presented in this story was the family farm, in which all members contributed to a common enterprise. The modern reality, on the other hand, was a family in which its members went off in different directions.
This passage gives a sense of the story’s tone:
Today the forces of social change have broken down the family. It is now tiny—a husband, a wife, and one or two children. Its members do little more than eat or sleep together. They buy everything—food, laundry, entertainment—and produce nothing but the money for these purchases. The outward pull of movies, automobiles, bridge club, and Elks constantly threatens what little family unity remains.
The fact that the societal ills listed above include bridge playing and the Elks is a hint to what is remarkable about this story when viewed from the vantage point of the 21st century, which is that most of the “troubles” seem pleasantly quaint. One photo shows family members in their living room looking at the looming threat that was their rotary phone, waiting to hear if one of them might be called away.
In fact the photos look like less like a comparison of good vs. bad and more like a tribute to family life in its many forms.
For the story LIFE staff photographer Nina Leen followed three different types of families. The first was a farming family in the Ozarks in which everyone was pitching in together, right down to granny mending jeans on the front porch. The second family, based in Enid, Oklahoma, represented a “domestic” middle ground—the grandparents were only four blocks away and could still come over to read stories to their grandchildren, and when the teenage daughter went shopping for a bathing suit, all the women in the family came along to give their opinion.
Finally, Leen followed a family from Manhasset, N.Y., that exemplified what LIFE called the “atomistic” family (it would more commonly be termed “nuclear family“), in which the unit was comparatively small—two parents, two kids—everyone was going in their own direction. Dad travelled for work, mom was involved in her clubs, and their 14-year-old son hung out with his friends around town and his sister earned money by babysitting for neighbors when those parents were away.
Part of the reason that life in all three of these families looks beautiful is that Nina Leen takes beautiful photographs. (She also took images from foster homes for this story that have their own charm.) But to the modern eye scenes from all three of these family situations are capable of inspiring nostalgia—whether they show a family fishing expedition, a grandfather doing yard work with his grandson, or an “atomistic” 14-year-old hanging out with his friends at the diner. Leen’s shots of the teenage boy fending for himself look like stills from a classic coming-of-age movie.
LIFE’s story did include a dissenting view from an expert who argued that individuals gaining separation from their families can be a good thing. A professor from Vassar named Joseph Kirk Folsom told LIFE that the loosening of family ties was in fact a sign that America was living up to the American ideal of personal freedom. “If the family as a unit is to be so sacrosanct as to stand in the way of allowing a growing child to develop his own contacts freely, to roam in search of fresh private experiences and to strike out when he is ready to conquer his share of the world—then it has ceased to fulfill the functions for which it is intended in a democratic society,” Folsom said.
And of course family life is not always uplifting for everyone. The famous opening line of Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” acknowledges that there are an infinite number of ways that home life can go wrong.
There’s an argument that the one way happy families are alike has nothing to do with engaging in a common enterprise, but rather supporting its members on their own path, wherever that leads.
The Russell family, posing together in 1948, had worked their farm in the Ozarks town of Belleview, Mo., for 125 years.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scenes from a family farm in the Ozarks, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A family farm in the Ozarks, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
At the Russell family farm in Belleville, Mo., mending shoes was one element of a 14-hour workday.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scenes of family life in the Ozarks, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock
A grandmother mended jeans on the porch of the family farm in the Ozarks, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scenes from a story on family life, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Frantz family of Enid, Oklahoma attended church together, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Harry Frantz Jr. and his family sitting on the lawn in Enid, Oklahoma; Harry lived just four blocks from his parents, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock
Harry Frantz teaches his grandson, who lived just four blocks away, about gardening in Enid, Oklahoma, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Men of the Frantz family of Enid, Oklahoma, fished together, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Harry Frantz read to his grandchildren; he was a regular presence in their lives because he lived only four blocks away, Enid, Oklahoma, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock
Scenes from a story on family life, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scenes from a story on family life, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Members of the Frantz family of Enid, Oklahoma all went together when one of them wanted to buy a swimsuit, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scenes from a story on family life, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scenes from a story on family life, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Parker family enjoys a picnic lunch together in Manhasset, N.Y., 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Parker family dines together without dad, who is away on a business trip, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. Parker chatted over tea with other members her social club, Long Island, N.Y., 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A youth baseball game in Long Island, N.Y., 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Cary Parker, 14, spent time with friends in Long Island, N.Y., 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Taking the dog out for a walk gave a restless 14-year-old boy an opportunity to meet up with friends, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Martha Parker (left), at age 11, was often out of the house at night working baby-sitting jobs like this one, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Packer family in Long Island, N.Y. waited for the phone to ring and possibly call one of them away to an outside activity, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The tendency to daydream and imagine an unrealistic ideal, as inspired by advertising, films, and radio serials, was portrayed in a 1948 LIFE story as an enemy of family life.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Sidney Hauser, 11, needed to spend two years in foster care because of an illness in the family, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This day nursery tended to kids whose parents worked, 1948.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
